FLORENCE — Florida country singer Casee Allen had to compete with the sun for attention Saturday afternoon from the several hundred folks at Country Thunder.
So he did what any aspiring country singer in his position would do: He sang about sex.
Sex sells, especially when the temperature outside is hoovering near 80 and the sun feels like it's blazing at least 20 degrees hotter than that.
Allen's sexy ballad "Perfume" surely had all the ingredients of an attention grabber — it had some sultry come-hither lyrics and bluesy, hip-swaying innuendo. And it worked, sort of. The people in the concert bowl — that's what they call the main festival area near the stage — stuck around for his 45-minute set.
But it seemed nothing could lure away the small crowd standing in bunched up lines at the Country Thunder merchandise tent in the shadow of the giant slingshot.
Band members of California country newcomer Cam bravely mounted the sling shot ride, a behemoth proposition for the drunk much less the sober among the Country Thunder crowd. Here's how it works: You're strapped inside a metal cage attached to giant rubberbands and it hurls you 100 mph 200 feet straight up in the air. OK, that is the simple explanation; judging from the computer setup and control panels, it's much more complicated and safer than it looks.
A few minutes before they took on the slingshot, several of Cam's band members including drummer Wally Waldron ditched their T-shirts and went bare-chested while they tossed a Frisbee backstage.
"It's fantastic, amazing," Waldron said of the weather as he missed a toss and had to climb through a fence to retrieve the disc. "I'm from Sweden, it's cold."
Cam ("Burning House") is set to take the stage at 6:30 Saturday. Headliner Jake Owen goes on at 10.
